The Bloodstained Bridal Gown
by LuxBlack
Summary: What if the crow landed on Shelly's grave instead of Eric's? It is Shelly to be called from the dead... Please R
1. Chapter 1

THE BLOOD-STAINED BRIDAL GOWN (A Crow Fanfiction)

Summary: What if the crow perched on Shelly's grave instead of Eric's? It is Shelly to be called from the dead…

Disclaimer: I don't own The Crow.

A smoky, polluted, cloudy sky overlooked a nameless city. Dark red spirals of smoke rose from huge fires set here and there. If Dante had been alive in the twentieth century, he could have seen in this city a modern version of his _Inferno_.

In the corner between two of the hundreds gloomy streets, a small crowd formed over the corpse of a young man, lying in a puddle of blood. His abdomen had a huge wound caused by a large knife, and in his back three bullets had broken spine and muscles. His eyes and mouth were open in an eternal grimace of horror. He had been thrown from a large, circular window of the loft he shared with his soon-to-be wife.

The loft, which once was very cozy, now was a mess of blood, broken objects and pieces of glass; cops, paramedics and photographers were examining everything. Near a mannequin holding a simple, but cute, wedding dress, Officer Albrecht, mid-forties, short and a little heavy-set, with a funny but clever look, was reading a wedding invitation and talking to a colleague.

"Shelly Webster and Eric Draven. Wedding was tomorrow night."

"Who the fuck gets married on Halloween anyhow?", the other cop said.

"Nobody", was the sad answer.

In the street below the loft, a stretcher was wheeled fast towards an ambulance. On it, there was a young woman, still alive. The bruises and blood on her face couldn't hide the beauty of her features. A teenage girl approached the woman on the stretcher.

"Shelly!"

But Albrecht gently pushed her back. "Stand back, kid."

The woman was panting in pain, but the blade that had sliced her throat didn't touch her vocal chords.

"Where's Eric?", she managed to say with a cracked voice. Albrecht bent over her. "Tell him to take care of Sarah…", she begged him.

Albrecht felt his heart tighten. "I will. Just… Lie back". Shelly Webster was quickly carried away.

Albrecht turned to the teenage girl. She was blonde, short hair tied up, dressed in casual clothes. The holes in her black stockings and the number of necklaces and chains dangling from her neck gave her a punk touch. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"You Sarah?", he asked her.

"Yeah. You lied to her about Eric. And now you're gonna lie to me about Shelly. She's gonna die, isn't she?"

"Now, come on, she's gonna be fine, okay?", he said, with the most unsure tone in his voice.

Shelly Webster fought against death for thirty hours, but death won the battle. Her bloody, contused, bruised, wounded and outraged body was buried near another body, Eric Draven's. Just as like they were husband and wife. But their wedding was never celebrated, as long as some wicked god had banished love and happiness from that city. But could love set things right, at least partially? If Love came to an agreement with Hate, they could make up a third, more powerful force, Revenge.

_One year later_

Sarah entered the small graveyard where her two best, and only, friends were buried. The two tombstones had replaced the marriage altar. Sarah placed flowers on each tomb, the bright colors sharply contrasting with the gloom of the misty graveyard, almost as the symbol of a clownish illusion of life in a world of death.

Suddenly, Sarah heard a croak; and then she saw the black figure of a crow landing on Shelly's tomb. Sarah looked at the crow with curiosity. To her, this strange bird was an interesting creature: it may not have been a cheerful birdie, with its jet black feathers, rather ungraceful figure and scratchy voice; yet she liked it, just as we unconsciously like the irregular, nonconforming charm of the sublime.

"What are you, the night watchman?", she jokingly asked the crow.

The volatile just cawed again as an answer. The rain started to fall, so Sarah skated away, failing to notice the crow peck Shelly's tombstone.

Nobody could have imagined that it was knocking on the door that divided the living from the dead.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"_O vos omnes, qui transitis per viam, adtendite et videte, si est dolor sicut dolor meus."_

Four men were vandalizing a game arcade, breaking every glass and forcing every lock. And laughing. A hideous, nasty, intolerable laughing. One of them set the timer on a bomb. Then, pointing their fists up in alternate movements, like a clumsy dance of victory, they screamed.

"Fire it up! Fire it up!"

And, always guffawing, they got in a red T-bird, searching elsewhere for their wicked fun. They soon reached The Pitt, a squalid dive in which they usually spent a lot of time.

They started drinking a shot after another, just as if their brains weren't altered enough. One of them, blond, dressed like a 1980s rockstar, put a bullet on his tongue and swallowed it together with his shot. Another one, dark curly hair, a stupid expression on his face and high-pitched voice, congratulated the blond.

"Hey, that's good Funboy!"

Another one of the gang, skinny, with a funny goatee and thinning hair tied up, put a bullet on his tongue and toasted.

"Here's to Devil's Night, my favorite holiday", he said, and drank his shot of whisky&bullet. Then he boastfully put the burnt end of his cigar on his tongue, exciting the hilarity of his friends.

"Are you out of your mother-fuckin' mind, T-Bird?", said, among laughter, the last one of them, a muscular Afro-American with long, black hair tied in a million tiny braids. He then stopped his curly-haired, stupid-looking friend from drinking his shot, provoking him: "Pussies drink last."

The curly-haired obviously got angry, pulled out his gun and pointed it at the Afro-American: "Fuck you, Tin Tin."

Tin Tin pulled out one of his huge knives and held it to his friend's throat: "It ain't even loaded, Skank."

Funboy, the blond, cut in pointing his gun at Tin Tin: "This one is," but Tin Tin pulled out another knife.

Finally T-Bird, the skinny one, pointed his gun at each of them in turn: "Which one of you motherfuckers wants to bet me this one isn't loaded?"

But instead of doing the only wise thing in their lives by killing each other, they burst into laughter and screamed again, fists up, their wicked motto:

"Fire it up! Fire it up! Fire it up!"

A blonde waitress, pale, slow and with eyes heavily circled, obviously a drug addict, approached their table.

"Here's your shooters. Put your guns away, guys," she said weakly.

"How ya doin' Darla?"

They began to put their dirty hands on their new toy, and she let them. She was Sarah's mother.

* * *

"_Ne vocatis me Noemi, sed vocate me Mara."_

The rain was falling heavily. It was like the sky was crying in pain. Or out of anger.

In the graveyard, the crow perched on Shelly's tombstone, and waited. The wet ground where Shelly Webster was buried began to move, like a fetus kicking its mother's womb. Then, under the crow's tiny eyes, the grave opened, and a pale, tapered hand came out and clawed the mud. Out of the eternal darkness of the grave, the body of Shelly Webster crawled out, and collapsed on the ground, twitching and writhing in agony under the cold rain. Her body had been delicately enwrapped in a pale peach-pink veil dress before burial. The woman cried to the heavens, a cry that had nothing human at all.

The crow cawed at her, as if trying to snap her out. She saw it, and when the crow rose in the air and flew towards the graveyard gates, she instinctively felt she had to trust this bird, and so she rose, trembling, and followed it.

The crow led her to the loft she once shared with Eric. It was a mess, obviously nobody had touched anything since that damned night, a year before. A fluffy white cat received her and mewed.

"Gabriel," she said, and took the cat in her arms.

Suddenly, the sharp, painful blade of a flashback hit her, hurting her to the core. She fell with her knees on the floor, hands in her brown hair, and let herself being torn apart by those horrid memories.

_Flashback_

That night, she was alone, and when she heard a knocking at the door, she was sure it was her boyfriend.

But when she opened, the door was suddenly slammed open by T-Bird, Skank, Tin Tin and Funboy. It all happened in a few minutes. They grabbed her, punched her, kissed her roughly, then punched her again sending her to the floor. Then she was grabbed again, her dress torn, and she was carried on the bed. Tin Tin caressed her with the pointy edge of his knife. He cut her throat, choking the piercing sound of her cries. Then, in turn, they began to feast with her body.

Meanwhile, Eric broke in. Before he had the time to do something, a knife was thrown towards him and driven in his abdomen. He fell to the floor. Shelly cried her beloved's name in a voice suffocated by blood. Eric managed to pull the knife out of his abdomen. But the scumbags grabbed him and spread his arms. They shot three or four times in his upper back, then threw him down the big circular window. The last things Shelly remembered was the face of Officer Albrecht and her last thirty hours of agony.

_End of flashback_

While reviving the last, horrible memories of her life, Shelly had tried to suffocate the unendurable pain by clenching her fists on the jagged frames of the circular window, where the glass had been cracked to pieces. When she let go, she looked at her palms, and saw two large wounds miraculously heal, close and disappear in a few seconds.

Shelly moved slowly to a dresser with a mirror on it, and lighted some candles. Touching what remained of her belongings, she remembered her tender moments with Eric. Only with Eric she felt complete as a person. Eric was everything she could have ever desired. Every single moment spent with him made her feel like they were in a poem: magical and eternal. She loved poems, and she loved Eric. He would never get tired of her saying it. They would spend whole hours in each other's arms. And now it was over… She and Eric, humiliated and killed like that… Someone out of the blue had managed to break in the sacred intimacy of their poem and destroy it all.

Her memory with Eric was too much, and Shelly couldn't take anymore. She punched the mirror in anguish, and threw the candles on the floor. She opened a drawer and pulled some cosmetics she and Sarah had bought for the Halloween party before the wedding. Halloween. The wedding. Of course! She turned over and saw her wedding dress. Even if her heart wasn't beating anymore, she could feel an increasing anger shaking her soul, while the mission for which the crow had brought her back was starting to get clearer and clearer in her mind. _It can't end like this_, she thought. _But now I'm back. I'm back… and… invincible!_

Under the crow's watchful eye, Shelly began to transform: she put the white face powder on her already pale face, neck and chest. Then made up her eyes and lips with the blackest eye shadow and lipstick the cosmetic industry could offer. She looked at her new reflection: the sweet, calm, delicate-featured face of Shelly Webster as a living was now replaced by a furious porcelain-doll mask. Then she got rid of her pale pink shroud and wore her wedding dress. It was slightly bloodstained, that was why she hadn't been buried with it on. As the dress touched the floor, she made it more comfortable by tearing off the hem. She then found her favorite black leather boots and wore them. Finally, she put the bridal veil on her wet messy hair, bent over to give Gabriel an affectionate stroke, and with the crow perched on her shoulder, she walked to the circular window and looked over the infernal city.

A lightning illuminated her grim face. In her veins blood wasn't running anymore. In her veins ran rage.

**Author's note**

Translations from Latin: "O you all who passed through the way, consider and see if there is a sorrow like mine."

"Don't call me Noemi (Sweet), but call me Mara (Bitter)."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

A loud swearing was coming from the entrance of Gideon's pawn shop. Gideon, the owner, was a short, fat man with wild eyes and such a voice that the crow's cawing, in comparison, sounded like a nightingale's song. Gideon and Tin Tin were arguing over some blood-stained merchandise Tin Tin was trying to trade. Finally, Gideon managed to send Tin Tin away, seeing him out with a racist insult. Tin Tin returned the courtesy, gave him the finger and closed the gate.

"Lucky I didn't stab your fat ass", he muttered, and walked off.

Meanwhile, several meters above the squalid maze, a crow was flying over the rooftops; with the same gracefulness, a bride followed, running noiselessly across the roofs. The dark red stains of blood that speckled her white dress made her look like a giant, beautiful butterfly.

Suddenly, the crow landed, and Shelly stopped beside it. A familiar image formed in front of her gray-blue eyes: a muscular Afro-American man with a trench coat. One of them. The piece of shit that cut her throat. And there he was, right below her.

She let herself fall down, and with the lightness of a cat she landed on her feet, some steps far from Tin Tin. The odious knife-thrower saw a white, veiled figure coming straight towards him and, much strange to him, he began to feel uneasy. Then the figure got more sharpened before his eyes: a punk chick with a wedding dress. He snickered.

"What happened to you, pussycat? Your hubby won't fuck you on your wedding night?"

But, very much stranger to him, as the punk bride got closer and closer, his feeling of unease began to turn into something else. _Fear_. He pulled a knife and challenged her.

"Come on, dolly."

Before the blade could touch her, Shelly had already pinned him down in the mud, and they fought. More surprised than angered, Tin Tin hit her in the face with a powerful fist, and the woman, showing no sign of pain, turned her face back to him and smiled, a smile that froze Tin Tin's blood. She punched him square in the face, sending him against a wall. Tin Tin was stunned and scared. This woman was nearly half his size, but three times stronger. Something was wrong.

The woman went to him and kept him pinned against the wall.

"Murderer!", she growled into his face.

"I ain't murdered nobody, I don't even know you, what the fuck you want?", he cried like a little boy.

"I want you to tell me a story. A man and a woman in a loft, a year ago." There was an increasing rage in her voice. "You killed them both, on Halloween. I'm sure you remember… You cut her and raped her!"

"Yeah, yeah, well, a couple of fuckers, whatever. Why the fuck do you care?"

Shelly slapped him.

"His name was Eric! You stabbed him! You shot him!"

"Yeah, Eric… What a flight we made him do, I'm sure he loved it!", Tin Tin insinuated, then suddenly, taking advantage of Shelly's painful memory, he hit her hard with his head. Then he took a lead pipe and began hitting her on the back.

"Let me tell you about murder", he shouted, "it's fun, it's easy!"

_That's the problem_, Shelly thought angrily. _It's too easy. Dying is so easy, while coming to life is so hard…_

The blows with the lead pipe would have left even a bodybuilder with broken bones, but Shelly got herself up effortlessly, fixing her veil and facing him. Deep inside, Tin Tin was scared to death, there was something definitely unnatural in this chick. But he didn't give up. He took off his trench coat, and pulled two knives.

"I'd like you to meet two buddies of mine. We never miss."

He threw his first knife, but Shelly ducked it. Tin Tin tried to repress the uneasiness thinking it was only luck; but when he threw his second knife and Shelly deftly batted it away, he began to worry.

"Try again, try harder", she said, with a hint of mockery in her voice.

Maddened, Tin Tin threw a third knife, and this time Shelly caught it between her hands. Before Tin Tin had the time to realize he was in trouble, Shelly threw the knife back at him, nailing him in the wall by the shoulder. In a flash she was before him, pulling a knife and pointing the blade at him.

"Victims", she said. "Aren't we all?"

And she stabbed Tin Tin square in the chest. Luckily he didn't pass away at once. Shelly drew some precious information out of him, then slowly cut his throat. She used his knives to stab him in each organ and watched him die, enjoying every second of his agony.

* * *

Sarah skated towards The Pit, and entered the dive. At one of the tables she spotted her mother Darla, necking with Funboy. She approached them and boldly sat at their table, letting out a "ahem" to get their attention. Seeing her, the two looked annoyed.

"I told you to stay outta here Sarah", her mother weakly said.

"So I guess you're not gonna be home till a lot later, huh, Darla?"

Sarah had stopped to call her 'mom' a long time before. It was senseless. Darla had barely taken care of her when she was very little, and now she didn't even seem to care if her own daughter was alive or not. Yet Sarah didn't hate her. The clever teenager knew it was because of drugs, and despite feeling so loathed at the sight of her own mother so weak, so pale, dressed like a bitch and surrounded by the scumbags' dirty attentions, she kept caring about Darla.

"She's busy", Funboy unpleasantly replied, "Go play with your dolls."

"I don't have any dolls."

Darla gave her some money. "Get some food."

"Somebody already bought me dinner.", Sarah said. She had been offered dinner by Officer Albrecht earlier that night. They had become close friends since Eric and Shelly's death.

"A policeman", she added, looking at Funboy and hoping to see him behind bars for the rest of his useless life. Then she took the money and walked off.

_Eric, Shelly, I miss you so bad, my pals_, Sarah thought, with tears in her eyes.

* * *

Officer Albrecht and his boss Officer Torres watched Tin Tin's body being carried off. It looked like a giant, bloody pincushion. On the wall, a huge crow had been sketched with Tin Tin's blood.

"Who's this sack of shit?", Torres asked.

"That's Tin Tin, one of T-Bird's men. I think you can rule out 'accidental death'", Albrecht replied.

"Don't any of these street-demons have real grown-up names?", Torres commented, snickering.

Albrecht was serious. "It doesn't look like your usual gang crap."

"Come on Albrecht, spare me. You're a beat cop now, so be a beat cop."

"I'm supposed to thank you for that, right?", Albrecht said irritably.

"A word to the wise," Torres said. "Watch your fucking mouth."

Then Torres's eye was caught by the giant crow blood-sketch. "And what the hell is that?"

"I call it blood, detective," Albrecht said. "But I suppose you'll write it up as… graffiti", he finished with sarcasm.


End file.
